Shared pilot passage plan and navigational safety during pilotage

Navigating in confined waters with a pilot aboard requires that the pilot’s intention and plan is understood by all present on the bridge. The present study investigates the effect of having a detailed route plan and monitoring it in the context of pilotage. The aim was to see how the presence of a shared pilot passage plan in the Electronic Chart Display and Information System (ECDIS) affects the identification and recovery from navigational errors made by a pilot. Twenty participants, 10 with a shared route plan and 10 without, participated as navigators in a simulator scenario involving pilotage in the Oslofjord. Participants were bachelor students in nautical science. The navigation scenarios involved the intentional error by the pilot just before a predefined way point. Three measurements of relevance to navigational safety were recorded: (1) the time it took the participant to express concern, (2) the time it took the participant to correct the error (‘time to recovery’), and (3) the number of groundings. The study revealed that time to express concern and time to recovery were significantly much shorter for the group with a shared pilot passage plan presented in ECDIS than for the group without such a plan. Providing a bridge team with a shared pilot passage plan in ECDIS during pilotage might improve the ability to identify and correct navigational errors.     

Response-based analysis for Tension Leg Platform

The typical industry practice for Tension Leg Platform (TLP) design focuses on a conventional short-term design recipe, which assumes that an N-year design environment leads to an N-year response. In the response-based design method, the TLP is designed to withstand N-year responses rather than respond to N-year environmental conditions. In this paper, we present an overview and a general procedure for the response-based design method and use a case study to compare the critical TLP responses between the two methods. The results of our comparison show that the conventional short-term design method often contains an element of conservatism and that the response-based design method can reduce the design conditions and thereby achieve cost savings.     

Response spectrum method for extreme wave loading with higher order components of drag force

Response spectra of fixed offshore structures impacted by extreme waves are investigated based on the higher order components of the nonlinear drag force. In this way, steel jacket platforms are simplified as a mass attached to a light cantilever cylinder and their corresponding deformation response spectra are estimated by utilizing a generalized single degree of freedom system. Based on the wave data recorded in the Persian Gulf region, extreme wave loading conditions corresponding to different return periods are exerted on the offshore structures. Accordingly, the effect of the higher order components of the drag force is considered and compared to the linearized state for different sea surface levels. When the fundamental period of the offshore structure is about one third of the main period of wave loading, the results indicate the linearized drag term is not capable of achieving a reliable deformation response spectrum.     

Numerical modeling of ground response during diaphragm wall construction

Construction of diaphragm wall panels may cause considerable stress changes in heavily overconsolidated soil deposits and can induce substantial ground movement. The 3D Lagrangian method was adopted to model the mechanical response of ground, including horizontal normal stress and shear stress, lateral ground displacement and vertical ground surface settlement, during the slurry trenching and concreting of diaphragm wall panels. Numerical results show that slurry trenching leads to horizontal stress relief of ground, reducing the horizontal stress of the ground from initial K0 pressure to hydrostatic betonite pressure. Wet concrete pressure lies between the hydrostatic bentonite pressure and the initial K0 pressure, so it can compensate partially the horizontal stress loss of the ground adjacent to the trench and thus reduce the lateral movement of the trench face as well as the vertical settlement of the ground surface.     

Timing sequence changes of landscape plants in Shanghai Area,China

Based on published reports and direct observation, the common resources of landscape plant species in the Shanghai area were identified and studied in terms of the landscape characteristics of timing sequence changes over a one year time period. The results showed that there were 199 common landscape plant species in Shanghai, distributed in 67 families and 129 genera. These plants were categorized by three ornamental characteristics: flowers, foliage and fruits. The species were thus further analyzed according to the time periods which these characteristics were present. The results showed that flower ornamental distributed throughout the year, particularly from April to June, and plant species with colorful foliage could be seen every month, and particularly in November and December. On the other hand, few plant species with fruit ornamentals were observed in Shanghai area. The diversity of landscape timing sequence changes of the 199 plant species under examination was then analyzed by using the Shannon-Weiner and Simpson index formulas. The results showed that the higher diversity was observed in January, February and from August to October, while the lowest diversity was recorded from March to July and during November and December. The diversity of landscape characteristics of these plants was ranked according to foliage, flowers and fruit. Using this method, one park and one plant community were selected to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of their time-changing plant landscape, with the goal of assessing the validity of the chosen ranking method. These results in the present study would be helpful to evaluate the plant landscape in a specified space and further enrich the diversity of plant and landscape by a target-oriented way.     

Study on launch dynamics of the tank marching fire

As an army main battle equipment, it is required that the tank should have high firing accuracy and high first round hit probability during marching. The initial disturbance of the projectile is the premier factor that takes effect on the marching fire accuracy of the tank. And the marching fire accuracy of the tank depends on the launch dynamics behaviors of the tank. In this paper, the launch dynamics theory of a tank marching fire is studied, and its launch dynamics model is established. Based on the transfer matrix method for multibody system(MSTMM) and the automatic deduction theorem of overall transfer equations, the overall transfer equation and the overall transfer matrix of a tank multibody system are deduced; the launch dynamics equations of the tank marching fire are deduced, and the dynamic response of the tank system, the motion of projectile in barrel, the initial disturbance of the projectile and the vertical target dispersion are exactly simulated; meanwhile, the results of simulation are verified by tests. This work provides both theoretical foundation and simulation approaches for improving the marching fire accuracy of the tank.     

Geometric calibration algorithm of polarization camera using planar patterns

Polarization pattern provides additional information besides spectral signatures. It can be used in many applications, such as navigation, defect detection and object identification. A novel polarization camera composed of four synchronized cameras is proposed, and it can realize real-time polarization measurement. This study particularly concentrates on the geometric calibration of the system. The projection model is analyzed and the multi-camera calibration algorithm is proposed. Firstly, each camera is calibrated separately using planar patterns, and then the geometric calibration algorithms are performed. Due to the geometrical constraint, a global optimization method results in smaller estimation uncertainties. A mean rotation error of 0.025° and a mean translation error of 0.26mm are achieved after geometric calibration. The images are rectified to establish a correspondence among cameras and are combined to acquire the polarization measurement. The polarization pattern of the skylight is measured by the system and the results are consistent with the previous studies.     

Research of legal affair simulation based on Petri net

Legal affair simulation is on the basis of information technology, and can simulate legal scene. College students do legal experiments with virtual reality scene. This helps to train college students. Petri net has not only strict math definition to analyze the dynamic behavior of models, but also intuitive graphic expression. Petri net is used to model for legal process. Reduction rules of Petri net are used to analyze the correctness of the system. At last Java Business Process Management (JBPM) technology is used to realize legal affair simulation models, models are transformed into flow charts. Simulation software deduces processes of legal affair. Many college students have improved their ability with the software, the fact proves that the method is effective.     

Magnetic field tuning characteristics of bimodal ultrasonic motor stator

The magnetic field tuning characteristics of an ultrasonic motor (USM) stator are discussed. The stator consists of two piezoelectric ceramic transducer (PZT) plates and one sandwiched-in Terfenol-D plate. The dimensions of the stator are carefully adjusted to specifically discuss the influence of the magnetic field on the frequency difference between the longitudinal and bending modes of the stator. The frequency difference discussed in this paper is usually small and mainly caused by uneven materials, machining errors and changes in external conditions (temperature, pre-stress or load). The longitudinal and bending modes of the stator are simultaneously excited by an external electric field to generate the elliptic motion trajectories of the driving points. A direct current (DC) magnetic field is applied to decrease the difference between the two mode frequencies of the fabricated stator. In experiments, the dependences of the two mode frequencies and their difference on DC magnetic fields are all investigated. The experimental results indicate that the difference between the longitudinal and bending mode frequencies of the PZT/Terfenol-D/PZT composite stator can be tuned by changing the intensity of the external DC magnetic field.     

Sensorimotor self-learning model based on operant conditioning for two-wheeled robot

Traditional control methods of two-wheeled robot are usually model-based and require the robot’s precise mathematic model which is hard to get. A sensorimotor self-learning model named SMM TWR is presented in this paper to handle these problems. The model consists of seven elements: the discrete learning time set, the sensory state set, the motion set, the sensorimotor mapping, the state orientation unit, the learning mechanism and the model’s entropy. The learning mechanism for SMM TWR is designed based on the theory of operant conditioning (OC), and it adjusts the sensorimotor mapping at every learning step. This helps the robot to choose motions. The leaning direction of the mechanism is decided by the state orientation unit. Simulation results show that with the sensorimotor model designed, the robot is endowed the abilities of self-learning and self-organizing, and it can learn the skills to keep itself balance through interacting with the environment.